Technical SEO is a challenge that local marketers face every day. The basics are easy enough to grasp, but there are some aspects of technical SEO that can feel daunting to even seasoned pros. In this post, we’ll take a look at four elements of technical SEO that can feel complicated and overwhelming, but if you break them down into simple steps, they’re not as scary as you might think!
The Basics Of Technical SEO
Technical SEO is all about making sure the website is set up to be easily crawled. You want Google and other search engines to be able to read and index your website as quickly and accurately as possible.
Here are some basic elements of technical SEO that every local marketer should be aware of:
- User-Friendly URLs
- A Content Management System (CMS) That Allows for Frequent Updates & Changes
- Meta Tags & Titles That Are Optimized For Your Keywords
- Structured Data Markup (Schema)
The importance of each of these elements will vary depending on your specific industry, but here’s why they’re important: * User-Friendly URLs – makes it easier for users (and therefore Google) to navigate around your site * A CMS That Allows for Frequent Updates & Changes – allows you to keep content fresh on a more regular basis which helps with search performance over time * Meta Tags & Titles That Are Optimized For Your Keywords – helps Google understand what each page is about so that it can provide relevant results in its SERPs. This also helps you get higher rankings in localized searches!
Title And Meta Tag Optimization
You may have heard the term “Title Tags” and “Meta Tags” before, but don’t know what they are. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Title tags are the first thing a user sees when they click on a search result
- Meta tags are the second thing a user sees when they click on a search result
You can also think about them as an answer to “What is this page about?” for both users and search engines alike. For example, if you were searching for “snowboard shop,” you might notice that some pages had more information than others. The reason for this could be that their meta descriptions contain more relevant keywords than other pages in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Similarly, if one company’s meta description said something like “We sell snowboards” while another company’s said something like “Our snowboarding supplies include everything from helmets to boots,” it would be easy to see why one would rank higher than another—as well as which page was likely better suited to meet your needs!
Schema Markup
Schema markup is a way to add structured data to your website in order to make it easier for search engines to understand what is on your website. When you use schema markup, search engines can better understand the content on your page and display more accurate information in their search results.
To use schema markup, you need a code snippet that tells Google what type of content certain elements are so that it can provide an accurate description when someone searches for them. Once this code is implemented correctly, webmasters can add structured data tags such as “name”, “URL” and “description” within HTML tags that describe individual pieces of content on their site.
Page Speed Optimization
You may have heard of page speed optimization (PSO), but did you know that it’s a ranking factor for Google? Page speed is the number of milliseconds it takes for a website to load in a browser, and sites with poor performance can suffer from reduced rankings and conversions. Here are some things to keep in mind when optimizing for page speed:
- Make sure your images are optimized. Large image files can make pages slower than necessary. Image optimization tools like TinyPNG can help compress large images to make them smaller and faster loading.
- Use HTML code that won’t slow down your site. There are several ways to do this, such as minifying CSS files or using compressed JavaScript instead of uncompressed JavaScript files that require more processing power on the end user’s computer (or mobile device).
User Experience Optimization
User Experience Optimization (UX) is about improving the user’s experience on a website. It’s not about making the owner of your website happy, it’s about what makes sense for your users.
It should also be noted that UX is not just one thing; there are many different facets of UX optimization, some of which will be addressed in this section.
In order to make sure that your site has a good user experience, you need to know what those things are that people want to do on your site and how they expect it to feel when they do those things.
Local marketers do have a good understanding of the basics of technical SEO, but when it comes to getting into the nitty-gritty details on things like schema markup and page speed optimization, things become more complicated.
That said, even with a basic understanding of the basics, local marketers still have a lot to learn in terms of technical SEO.
As you begin your journey into this area of expertise, you’ll find that the more advanced aspects can prove daunting and require time and resources to implement effectively.
Conclusion
We’ve looked at some of the most important aspects of technical SEO that local marketers should know about. While these may not be easy to grasp at first glance, they are essential for making sure your business appears in Google Search results.